Title: Leave-takings
Fandom: PotC
Pairing: W/E, W/J
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: This story is not true and not mine.
Notes: inspired by hijapaloma Relinquish
---
It
started, perhaps when he first said goodbye with "I love you." When
he'd first made the choice to die, honorably, at the side of a pirate
and if that wasn't some sort of a vow, Elizabeth doesn't know what is.
It
started, perhaps when he'd said "I love you" with his silence. When the
battle was won in a golden cave, and Will could have lined his pockets
with enough to make himself Governor twenty times over and Will still.
He still held his toungue. Darling, impetuous Will who snuck Mr. Brown
extra ale to free up three needed hours to himself; and for all his
practice, Will didn't need her enough to bring himself to fight for her.
It
started, perhaps when he named himself the son of Bootstrap Bill
Turner. With the pistol pressed sharp to his chin accepted like the
noose which lingers near a pirate's neck, and he will do this for her,
he will. Blacksmith-boy swaying on the edge of the boat and the sea and
the salt air like, the pirates mutter, something fey and deathdark.
It
started, perhaps when she couldn't keep silent with his touch. When she
asked him 'don't stop', when they'd left Jack for dead, when the round
of the medallion gold shone like wretched truth.
It started,
perhaps when she'd first lifted the coin from Will's chest as if she
could somehow keep his heart that way. She named him 'pirate'.
And it fit,
feathered hat and all and she named him 'pirate' and he welds to her
still, shaky, and loose and she named him 'pirate' and she thinks. She
thinks of how she'd looked to Will when he'd only kept a bare handful
of coins from that cave, he'd said to her, "Not all treasure is silver
and gold." He said it like rote, like a repeat, like a revelation, and
Elizabeth knows that Will doesn't have it in him to be so poetic.
She, herself, named him 'pirate'.
A
cursed crew frittered away their treasure, and Elizabeth wonders if she
has been cursed herself because, even as they close and embrace on the
parapet, the kiss turns to ash in her mouth.
---
endnotes:...and yet another attempt to reconcile Pirate!Will...